Louise Allen - Moonlight And Mistletoe

‘I know exactly what you are about, my lord,’ she snapped, now too angry and flustered to be cautious. ‘You think you can flirt with me until I become too befuddled to resist your proposals and agree to sell the Moon House to you. Or else until I compromise myself in the eyes of local society and have to sell.’

‘Hester, I promise I would never do anything to compromise you. And if I were intending to seduce you into selling to me, I would not do anything so fatal to my chances as kissing you in your own front room. See how angry it has made you.’

‘Oh, you are insufferable,’ Hester stormed. ‘Out!’ She stood, elbows akimbo while Guy opened the front door and, with a slight bow, removed himself.

He stood for a moment on the doorstep, reviewing the last few minutes. So much for his idea of seducing Hester Lattimer out of the Moon House. He had thought that a discreet flirtation might awaken her to the idea that life in London would, after all, be pleasant. He had no idea what it was that had sent an attractive and well-bred young lady hastening into rural seclusion, but he had some confidence that talk of balls and parties, fashionable shopping and promenades, combined with flattering male attention, would persuade her to change her mind.

Guy jammed his hat on his head with some force and strode down the garden path. And what did l do? he demanded inwardly. Kissed her straight out. Idiot. ‘Idiot,’ he repeated out loud, fortunately to an empty street. No wonder she was angry, she was a virtuous young lady. And an enchantingly sensual and responsive one at that.

Guy turned and strode across the Green with no destination in mind, but a pressing need for action. That flash of feeling as his lips touched hers… as if her mouth was made for his. Angrily he kicked a stone out of the road. Dalliance with respectable young ladies was not in his plans.

And this particular respectable, sensual, angry young lady was also, he now realised, a very brave and stubborn one. Those roses had shaken her but she was not going to give into her fear-which was a dangerous choice to make. Money, fear, seduction had all failed: what did that leave? Kidnapping?

H ester retreated into the living room in a state of shock. ‘You let him kiss you,’ she scolded herself. Then, with unquenchable honesty, ‘You kissed him back.’ She had been unnerved by those roses, of course, but that was no excuse for positively wanton behaviour. What would Guy think of her now? She smiled grimly-that was all too easy to answer.

She had been kissed before by amorous young officers when she had been in Portugal. She had always found those hopeful advances both easy to repel and equally easy to forget; this was different. Her relationship with John had been, whatever his indignant family might choose to believe, entirely platonic and gave her no yardstick to compare Guy’s caresses against. Trying to ignore the sensations that were assaulting her body, Hester forced herself to think about the dead flowers instead.

Someone was trying to frighten her and, she had to admit, they had succeeded. Now, with the distance of time and a shattering kiss between that first discovery and now, Hester was ready to believe that there was some human mind at work here. Resolutely she pushed all thoughts of the numerous Gothic novels she had read behind her and tried to concentrate on who might wish her out of the Moon House.

Lord Buckland-she refused to think of him more familiarly-was the obvious, in fact the sole, candidate. Yet her instincts were telling her to trust him, if only in the matter of the Moon House.

‘Miss Hester-breakfast is ready. I called ten minutes ago.’ It was Susan, looking hot and flustered; so flustered, in fact, that she was unlikely to recognise signs of agitation in her mistress.

‘Did you?’ Hester asked vaguely. Her fingers were against her lips; she removed them hastily. ‘I did not hear you. I did hear a crash.’

‘I dropped the platter,’ Susan admitted. ‘Ham and eggs. And it’s the devil… I mean, it is very hard to get the grease up off those flagstones.’

‘I am sure it is,’ Hester agreed, following the maid out.

Jethro and Miss Prudhome were already seated at the kitchen table, but it was obvious that more was wrong than a simple accident with the food. Miss Prudhome was sitting poker-backed on her hard chair, obviously under the influence of powerful emotion; her sharp nose was pink and her eyes looked suspiciously damp behind their sheltering pince-nez.

Jethro was flushed and embarrassed and Hester’s entrance interrupted him in mid self-justification. ‘…mean to criticise you, Miss Prudhome, I just said there was talk in the village. I never meant you to overhear me.’

‘What is going on?’ Hester demanded. ‘Susan, please pour the coffee, it seems we all need it.’ Certainly I do, she admitted inwardly, pressing her fingers to lips which she was sure must be betrayingly red and swollen.

‘I am a failure,’ Miss Prudhome blurted out. ‘I should never have presumed to think I could be a fitting companion.’

‘Nonsense,’ Hester said, more robustly than she felt. In truth, her heart was sinking; unsatisfactory as she was, Miss Prudhome was all that stood between her and scandal, for no young unmarried woman could set up home without chaperonage. ‘Now, drink your coffee while Jethro repeats whatever it was he said to start this.’

Jethro went redder, shot a sideways look at Hester and muttered defensively, ‘Of course, you’d expect a bit of talk with a new arrival.’

‘Yes?’ Hester enquired with a sinking feeling. ‘Talk you heard at the Bird in Hand, I suppose? Go on.’

‘Just that… that it’s odd a young single lady moving into a village like this and then…’

‘And?’ Hester persisted, a sick emptiness building inside her. ‘And… his lordship moving in right opposite, like-at almost the same time.’

‘What?’ Hester found herself gaping at her young butler and shut her mouth sharply. She had expected some gossip at her arrival, but it had not occurred to her that Guy Westrope’s presence might be linked to hers. She had expected to ride out any initial disapproval of her youth by a display of obvious respectability and to make acquaintances as fast as possible so that her character might be easily established and displayed. Guy’s coincidental arrival had never struck her as a threat to her own good name-now their proximity seemed highly dangerous.

To give herself time to think, she took some rashers of ham and ate with an appearance of calm. ‘Eat up, all of you,’ she said steadily. ‘We know this household is entirely respectable, it just requires us to act with confidence and these fool: h rumours will soon die down. Prudy, you and I will discuss our tactics after breakfast.’

Miss Prudhome gave a worried squeak of agreement, which Hester registered absently. If she threw herself upon the confidence of Mrs Bunting-no, even better, Mrs Redland-she could explain her anxieties and enlist that critical lady’s support.

She pushed the plate away. Somehow she could not feel hungry; in fact, her inner equilibrium felt decidedly unsteady. Could she be sickening for something?

‘I will talk about my predicament at Mrs Bunting’s At Home tomorrow,’ she decided out loud. ‘I will be quite frank about my fears and the gossip and I will ask the more formidable matrons for advice.’

‘A good plan.’ Susan nodded vehemently. ‘They will see you have nothing to hide and will feel sorry for you and flattered that you are deferring to their judgement.’

Pleased by this show of support, Hester relaxed, only to be jolted by Jethro. ‘Where did those dead roses come from, Miss Hester?’

There was no point dissembling. ‘I have no idea. I found them on the dining-room table this morning.’ She looked at their startled faces and added, ‘Next to a burned-out candle in a chamber stick.’

‘But there was no one-’

‘You saw a light before we got home!’

‘What roses?’

They spoke over each other in a rush of realization, then fell silent. Jethro gnawed his lower lip. ‘I locked up, all right and tight before we went out, Miss Hester, I’d take my Bible oath on it.’

‘I know,’ she assured him. ‘And you checked again when we got home, I saw you.’

‘We’ll have to change the locks,’ he announced. ‘And I’ll go all round outside and try to force the window catches, see if there are any that are loose.’

‘What did his lordship have to say about the roses?’ Prudy asked abruptly.

‘He said he did not like their symbolism.’

Jethro’s brow furrowed and Susan explained. ‘Dead flowers. And roses, at that-like dead love, perhaps. Nasty.’ She shivered.

‘Well, we will do no good brooding on it,’ Hester said briskly. ‘Jethro, when you have brought in the coals for Susan and checked the windows, please take the gig into Tring and find a locksmith. Susan, you have plenty to do in the house. Prudy, could you spare me a moment, please?’

‘Should we lock ourselves in?’ Miss Prudhome enquired nervously.

‘Certainly not.’ Hester was brisk. ‘Whoever it is, is trying to scare us away and I will not give them the satisfaction.’

She poured herself another cup of coffee, pretending she did not hear Jethro’s muttered observation, ‘Only one person we know of wants us out of here, and that’s a fact.’

When the coffee was finished Hester felt she could put a difficult interview off no longer and bore Miss Prudhome away into the drawing room.

‘What do the roses really mean?’ the little governess asked, her voice quavering.

‘I do not know, only that it appears that someone has access to the house without our knowledge.’

To her surprise Miss Prudhome did not throw a fit of the vapours that Hester had expected to be developing. Her thin lips narrowed and she sat up straighter. ‘And do I understand that his lordship is under suspicion, Hester dear?’